So sometimes when he goes out with his buddies he takes a flask of whiskey with him.

He uses a flask I bought him as a present in college. It’s black leather and stainless steel and has his Delta Upsilon fraternity’s Greek letters engraved in the top and the words “To the Best Ever…” engraved on the front. Obviously, it has sentimental written all over it, and we (okay, probably just me) would be terribly upset if he ever lost it.

Well, Kevin told me that a security guard at an Oklahoma City Thunder basketball game almost confiscated it. He had the flask in the inside front pocket of his blazer when he got wanded!

But thankfully, the security guard’s wanding skills were about as good as Dwight Howard’s freethrows and the wand never beeped. Whew!

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard my female co-workers, friends and family members say things like, “He better remember it’s our anniversary (or my birthday, etc.) and have a gift and know what I want.”

Ladies – don’t set up your husbands and boyfriends for failure! Do what I do. I learned early on to help my husband with picking out my gifts and in doing so I’m never disappointed with my gifts!

I’ve been married 43 years and the first gift Randy gave me after we were married was an electric can opener. Yes, you read that correctly.

I blew a gasket! Seriously? A plug-in appliance? I cried, screamed and told him I could NOT believe he thought such a thing could be considered a GIFT. What was he thinking??

In his defense, many months later when he felt safe to talk about it, he explained that the hand held can opener that we received for a wedding gift was cheap, dull and difficult to turn. So he thought it would be nice to make my life easier by getting an electric can opener.

Awwww… but still there is NO EXCUSE to give your wife, girlfriend, or significant other any sort of appliance unless she asks for it as a gift. Period. End of story.

My girlfriend’s husband once purchased her an electric weed eater. Believe me when I say that’s much worse!

So ladies – how do you make sure your man never disappoints you with his gifts? What is the secret to making sure you love the gifts you receive for Valentine’s Days, birthdays, Christmases and anniversaries? Continue Reading

Men – read closely. This Valentine’s Day gift I am about to reveal is THE most romantic present a guy can give to a girl. I’m not joking.

When my husband Kevin and I met in college, he gave me a Valentine’s Day present that completely melted my heart and made me fall in love with him all over again. Here’s what he wrote in his Valentine’s Day card to me:

… The box is the most special present. Inside it, there are 67 cards, one for each week we have been together. The blue ones are special memories, the red ones are things I love about you, and the blank ink ones are quotes, some of which are from yours truly. Also, there are give coupon cards which are special surprises. I hope you like them all, and may the future hold many more amazing memories together.

Starting www.SunburstGifts.org from scratch has been such an exciting and rewarding project. It’s like I’ve given birth to a second child without the nine month wait and the whole alien-taking-over-my-body thing.

I definitely get even less sleep now because I stay up writing blog posts but I’m having a blast watching our subscribership grow each day!

We have so much fun sharing our passion of giving thoughtful gifts with the world that working with her on our blog is not “work” at all. I wanted to celebrate our new blog and partnership by surprising her with a – you guessed it! – thoughtful gift.

My son’s childhood friend passed away just before Thanksgiving. Travis was only 33 years old. The boys were best friends in elementary school when we lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They spent a lot of time together at each other’s homes until we moved to Oklahoma when the boys were eight years old.

Travis’s grandmother, Helen, and I kept in touch these past 25 years. When she called with the news that Travis had passed away, my heart broke. We spoke for a few minutes and hung up. It can be difficult to find just the right words to say when wanting to express your heartfelt sympathy and to give comfort to someone who has experienced death in their family.

Even standing in front of the sympathy cards section, reading and trying to find the right healing words is not always easy. It just so happened I was in a gift shop and I saw a baby lamb stuffed animal with a cross on its hoof. I immediately knew I had to send it to Travis’s grandmother. In the sympathy card, I explained when she felt the need to hug Travis to hug the baby lamb for comfort.

The gifts have been opened, there are leftovers in the fridge and we begin thinking about putting up the Christmas decorations. As part of my decorations, I display the beautiful Christmas cards we received. They are on the mantle, book shelves, dining room table, etc. One year, I placed them on a string similar to a clothes line and hung them on the wall. Sorry, I do not have a picture. Who knew I would be blogging gift ideas some 20 odd years later?!

Now, what to do with those pretty Christmas cards after the holidays? Throw them away? Oh…HO HO NO! I save them for next year. Not to decorate – there will be new Christmas cards for that. I use them as my gift tags on Christmas packages.

Everyone loves a handwritten thank you card, but a picture is also worth a thousand words!

Instead of a traditional handwritten thank you card, have your child hand write his or her thank you message on a dry-erase board or chalkboard. Take a picture of your child holding the thank you message. You now have a thank you card that will likely go in a picture frame in someone’s home it’s that awesome!

This idea works also works well for younger children who may be too young to write very much, or at all, but can draw pictures.

If you try this idea, please let us know how it turned out and send us photos. We would love to hear from you!

Now that I have my son Aiden, it’s so much fun to start our own family traditions – especially Christmas traditions! Growing up, I remember reading stories about Santa Claus pulling gifts made by his elves out of his toy sack and leaving them for children under their Christmas trees. The presents were always unwrapped.

I wanted Aiden’s experience on Christmas morning to be similar to those stories so I got him a personalized Santa Sack. It’s a large burlap sack that says on the front:

SPECIAL DELIVERY FROM THE NORTH POLE FOR AIDEN JAEGER DELIVERY DATE 25th DECEMBER FROM SANTA CLAUS

My hope is that the Santa Sack will make Christmas mornings even more magical and memorable for my son by making the story of Santa Claus come alive!

When Judy, a co-worker of mine, had her grandchildren visit her, she planned all sorts of events for them to do. One of them was a private recording studio session at my oldest son Dustin’s recording studio. He had just started his home recording studio business at the time.

Dustin hangs out in his recording studio.

Judy’s granddaughters had the time of their life recording in the studio, singing into a mike with headsets on, and making a real CD. They thought it was the coolest experience ever! What a story to tell their friends and family back home. They gave a copy of their newly released CD to their parents who cherished such a unique gift!

The idea of recording a CD led another co-worker, Tiffany, and her family to record Jingle Bells for their grandmother who lived in a different city. Practice began at the studio because there were lots of starts and stops, goofs and giggles, and funny family fodder during the recording session.